


Dreams, Interrupted

by Toastybluetwo



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-21
Updated: 2012-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-31 13:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toastybluetwo/pseuds/Toastybluetwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dream, interrupted. Inspired by the ME3 Take Back the Earth Trailer. (Femshep/Kaidan)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams, Interrupted

**Author's Note:**

> After the release of the Take Back the Earth trailer for Mass Effect 3 (which you can see here at http://youtu.be/Vs7kix6_8Ks), a friend of mine remarked that it would have been nice to see a version of that trailer starring Kaidan and Female Shepard. This piece was written in response to that remark.

The model ship was hers. It didn’t belong to any brothers – she didn’t have any. It didn’t belong to her cousins – they all lived in another star system, very far away. Carrie had never met them. It was hers. Her toy that she had written to Santa Claus and begged for. Her toy that had arrived on Christmas morning beneath the tree in their farmhouse on the grain conglomerate, wrapped with a big shiny bow.

After all, Commander Shepard was a girl, like her, and Commander Shepard was a hero. Carrie wanted to be a hero, too, when she grew up. She wanted to join the Alliance Navy and shoot guns, and fly around the galaxy making friends with aliens.

Her mother said that Carrie would have to keep her grades up. That was easy. She worked hard in science and math class. She studied until her eyes hurt, sometimes past her bedtime, with only her touchpad lighting the small tent made by the blanket that draped over her head. Carrie couldn’t run faster than the boys in her physical education class – not yet, anyway. So, she practiced. She would run through the grain fields and the sunflower fields, waving occasionally at the workers that operated the machines that watered and weeded the crops. She would run until she could hardly catch her own breath.

You had to run fast if you wanted to outrun evil aliens, just like Commander Shepard.

On that spring day, when school ended, Carrie raced home and straight to her model ship. Leaving her backpack on the dining room table, she barely said hello to her mother before tearing out of the farmhouse. Thoughts of tests and multiplication tables seemed to catch on the wind as she ran, her prized toy held aloft in the warm breeze. In Carrie’s mind, she saw planets filled with strange things, with promise of adventure and glory, with the promise of a future where people would speak of her as they did Commander Shepard.

With the promise of being a hero.

In her mind, she saw herself battling aliens with her prized ship.

And then, Carrie looked up, and saw aliens.

*****

Gloved fingers snatched up the scorched remnants of the broken toy, and Commander Shepard stood up, holding it in her hand. In that moment, the coincidence of finding this toy, this model of the original Normandy, in the middle of the smoking remains of a large conglomerate farm, was not lost on her.

Her head snapped erect as she caught movement in front of her – a husk sailed across the field, crackling with biotic power, and landed in a large pile of its already-deceased kind. It made a metallic noise of protest before expiring.

“That’s the last of them,” Kaidan Alenko said as he stepped up toward Shepard, still glowing slightly blue from the use of his biotics. “What’d you find?”

Shepard didn’t have time to answer. It was time to lead the incoming troops into battle.


End file.
